Fantastical Outerspace

Adventurers are lost in time and space. Shenanigans ensue.

Shardmoon Castle

Background

Shardmoon Castle was a legendary lair of evil that appeared several times throughout history. In each instance, the castle would suddenly materialize, floating ominously in the night sky.

Ruled by the vampire lord Crescentia Hargrave, the Castle and its’ denizens would spread terror and destruction throughout the land until heroes would rise and drive the vile keep back into the darkness from whence it came.

The reason for this mysterious behavior was that the Castle was itself a sort of inter-planar ship. The lich Koray Darzi discovered the corrupted epochite shard that would later become the Heart of Shardmoon Castle and he aided Crescentia in the construction of the Inverted Clock Tower, a powerful space-time engine.

In addition to traveling across the world and the planes, the Inverted Clock Tower’s time manipulation also gave it the power to ‘rewind’ the defeat of any of the castle’s residents, effectively granting immortality to all those within, be they mortal or undead.

However, this cyclical battle between good and evil would eventually be broken. A paladin of Pelor named Egon Sonnen was granted a mystical Iridescent Blade that possessed the power to banish the Castle once and for all.

It was the climax of this final battle that would leave Shardmoon Castle lost in time and space until it eventually came to rest on the Forlorn Rise deep within the Prismatic Vortex.

Story Involvment

The rampancy of Iris Four would cause necrotic corruption to spread forth from the Castle and gradually infect the Forlorn Rise itself.

The crises caused by this corrosion of the land would eventually bring the party to the Castle. Upon their arrival, the adventurers found the villainous populace of the castle to be surprisingly accommodating. Without a world to terrorize, the people of Shardmoon had more or less retired from the business of evil and they instead sought the aid of the party in removing the extremely irritable sword of light from their basement.

However, all that awaited them in their descent through the Inverted Clock Tower was an insane message from Iris Four and a deadly trap.

It appeared that another sinister force was seeking to usurp control of the castle. Iris Four re-activated the flight mechanisms of the Castle and sought to and fly it away from the Forlorn Rise. The plan was apparently to crash-land the Castle Island on the Timescarred Dial.

Seeking an alternate entrance into the castle’s core, the party sought out the secret laboratory of Koray Darzi and discovered a number of shocking surprises, including a back-door portal into the main control room of the Inverted Clock Tower.

After reaching the core, the party discovered the true nature of Iris Four and they engaged her in battle, eventually defeating the rampant artifact and freeing the denizens of the Castle from her influence.